The Queen has appointed Theresa May as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during a private audience at Buckingham Palace.

Mrs May was summoned to the Palace following David Cameron’s resignation, and was asked whether she could command a government.

Theresa May, 59, is now the UK’s second female Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party. She will be tasked with ensuring the country leave’s the European Union whilst getting the best terms for Britain.

Mrs May is Her Majesty’s 13th Prime Minister, the first being Sir Winston Churchill many decades ago. She is also one of only three PMs who was born during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

Buckingham Palace released a statement just before 5:30pm saying: “David Cameron has tendered resignation as PM to the Queen which Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept.”

David Cameron announced his resignation following the results of the EU referendum where the British public decided to leave the institution.

Earlier in the day, Mr Cameron took part in his 182nd and final Prime Minister’s Questions where the House of Commons paid tribute to the outgoing PM.

Originally, the new Prime Minister was supposed to be appointed at the beginning of September following a leadership battle.

However, on Monday the only other contender, Andrea Leadsom, dramatically dropped out of the race resulting in Mrs May receiving the keys to Number 10.

Mr Cameron is the youngest Prime Minister to leave office in around 110 years at the age of 49.

Despite all of today’s events, it was business as usual for The Queen. In the morning she undertook an engagement where she visited East Anglian Air Ambulance’s new operating base at Cambridge Airport.

Whilst there, she met staff and crew including her grandson, The Duke of Cambridge.

Good question – I would think that her bedroom may be 10 or 15 minutes walk away – The Palace is quite large! Just a thought!

Tom Edwards

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As much of an avid Anglophile as I am, if “pleased to accept” a resignation is a Brit idiom, it’s a new one on me.

That connotes that the issuer of the statement is happy the other party is leaving.

Which, I suppose, is a possibility………….?

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Martha Clark

Bless your heart…that is actually a standard form when the resigned is is giving up the position of his or her own volition. For the Queen to say she is “pleased” doesn’t mean she’s thrilled to see the PM go. It just means she’s simply happy to comply with Cameron’s stated wish. Yes, this is simply “polite” form. Later QEII will compliment him and indicate her regret.

Suzan Smith

It is not only nouns; many seem to think a plural is formed by ‘s also the use of it to denote a decade i.e. 60’s etc when by placing the apostrophe before the s denotes of the year 1960 only, not the decade. When I worked as a proof reader I once tried to explain to a typesetter why the pronoun it’s did not require an apostrophe by asking where one would place it in yours, theirs and ours. I also asked the typesetters not to use apostrophes at all because it would be far less time consuming for me to have to insert the few necessary apostrophes than to remove the many unnecessary ones.